


it takes two to garden

by 3amrunaway



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Neighbors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 12:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11486538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amrunaway/pseuds/3amrunaway
Summary: It had come as a surprise the first time Laurent had seen it. He’d been under the impression that his neighbor worked exclusively with trees: His yard brimming with large, magnificent willows, cedars, white-oaks, and maples. (He often tended to them shirtless, his bare skin resembling the warm, deeply brown trunks, shining like a bronze oil painting if he stayed under the beat of the sun for long enough.)His trees are immaculate; his garden… is not.





	it takes two to garden

**Author's Note:**

> [Based on this](http://robotmango.tumblr.com/post/162202229684/me-crouched-down-in-front-of-my-tomato-plants)
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> [You can reblog this on tumblr here!](https://sugaredguile.tumblr.com/post/162309233797/it-takes-two-to-garden)

‘I’ll fucking kill every flea beetle on this god forsaken earth. I swear, I’m going to kill them for you, every son of a bitch that dared get a mouthful. They’ll die screaming.’

‘Ohh!’ A voice above Laurent says, ripping him from his laser focus on the hole-filled leaf in his hand. ‘Okay. You’re talking to the plants, okay.’

Laurent looks up. On the other side of the fence is his neighbor, who, due to a glaring oversight on the landscaper’s part, has full view of both Laurent’s yard and his garden. The ‘fence’ separating them is, in actuality, four bricks stacked horizontally with metal bars sprouting up to cover the remaining height. For Laurent, it reaches his chest; For his neighbor, it reaches mid-abdomen.

‘You should try ladybugs,’ his neighbor tells him. ‘They’ll eat most bugs who hurt plants.’

The man is almost a foot taller than Laurent. A beast of mass and muscle. His hair reaches past his shoulders in loose, dark brown curls brandished with a rich gleam when the sun hits it just right.

He has a garden of his own, positioned a few feet from Laurent’s.

It had come as a surprise the first time Laurent had seen it. He’d been under the impression that his neighbor worked exclusively with trees: His yard brimming with large, magnificent willows, cedars, white-oaks, and maples. (He often tended to them shirtless, his bare skin resembling the warm, deeply brown trunks, shining like a bronze oil painting if he stayed under the beat of the sun for long enough.)

His trees are immaculate; his garden… is not.

The whole of it fits inside a ten by ten, knotty-pine box, elevated above the ground on thick, sturdy legs; a hand built contraption filled with coffee-black soil that never looks over-watered or under-watered, instead moist enough that – if the man had been smart enough to leave space between the planks at the bottom of the box – it should trickle through and drain efficiently. It’s a good setup.

But the setup isn’t the problem.

‘Are we swapping advice?’ Laurent asks, standing from where he’d been kneeling by his vegetables.

His mood has been sour ever since he discovered his pesticide infected vegetables; Being coached on how to garden from an obvious amateur did not help.

Laurent sets his shoulders back – nose in the air because it’s the only way to point it if he wants to meet his neighbors eye – and says, ‘In that case, you’ve let too many seedlings sprout through. If over-crowding and poor air circulation is your goal, then your well on your way to ruining a perfectly good batch of, let me guess, radishes? An easy plant. More impressive is the ability to kill them than keep them alive, but it looks like you’re well on your way.’

Laurent’s mom had taught him to garden. One of the first things she’d ever showed him was how you should bury two or three seeds in a single plot; not all seeds germinate, so over-seeding is a sure-fire way to get at least one plant to pop through. His neighbor had clearly gotten the same advice, sans the second, more crucial aspect of this technique: Thinning out the extra seedlings.  

The man looks unhurriedly to his green infested soil.

‘Ah,’ he says, his full, red lips rolling up at the corners. ‘I know I need to thin them out, I just haven’t had the heart to do it yet.’ One of his giant hands comes up to gently thumb at a bushel of sprouting leaves. Laurent’s eyes drop to follow the movement. ‘I mean, they worked so hard to break through the soil when others couldn’t, so I thought,’ and he breaks off, this time to chuckle as he shakes his head.

Lifting an eyebrow, ‘You thought?’

The man shrugs. ‘I thought they deserved a few more days before I killed them.’

It isn’t what Laurent is expecting to hear. For a moment, he can only look. The man looks back.

‘That is,’ says Laurent at length, ‘A profusely altruistic sentiment. They’re only plants.’

It’s the man’s turn to raise an eyebrow. ‘”I’ll fucking kill every flea beetle on this god forsaken earth”? They’ll die screaming”?’

Heat flares over Laurent’s neck up onto his cheeks, his eyebrows hardening like ice.

Slowly, ‘These are eggplants,’ and he gestures to one of the nibbled-on leaves.

It hadn’t been his first-time trying his hand at growing the vegetable in question, but that only made the sight of them this morning even more infuriating. Eggplants are fickle things that have a tendency to up and die at the smallest of inconveniences – like the soil being a degree cooler than it prefers.

It meant that Laurent had slaved for weeks to keep them pampered and happy, only for them to end up as some fucking flea beetle’s breakfast.

Point: Laurent’s frustration is entirely more justifiable than some newbie gardener over-crowding his garden out of, what, misplaced sentimentality?

Which is exactly what Laurent tells his neighbor.

His tale seems only to amuse the man, though; the corners of his eyes crinkling as he tips his head back to let out a low, honey-warm laugh. Bare arms lead to hands shoved in loose, grey sweats.

Something tight and unidentifiable strikes through Laurent. He’s left standing there, blinking, unused to this type of response to his volatile personality.

His neighbor has stopped laughing. He's smiling at Laurent, not like he’d just insulted both him and his gardening proficiency, but like he’d administered a charming joke.

The sun has risen behind him in a blazing ring of light.

Laurent’s thoughts consolidate into a single, confounding emphasis of _what the fuck_.

Forcing himself to reach an unhurried hand towards his gardening supplies, Laurent turns to walk back to his house, but not before shooting, ‘Thin your seedlings,’ over his shoulder.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> As always, I take my daily nutrients in the form of kudos and comments.
> 
> [Tumblr!](http://www.sugaredguile.tumblr.com)  
> [Twitter!](https://www.twitter.com/3amrunaway)


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